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rescendent writes with news that the Wii U still isn't selling very well. From the article: "Nintendo's Wii U console sold only 160,000 units worldwide during the past three months, with the company blaming a lack of first-party releases for the poor performance. Software sales for the system were just 1.3 million units. During the period Nintendo sold 90,000 Wii U consoles in Japan, 60,000 in the US and only 10,000 in Europe and Australia."
El Reg reports that the Wii sold 210,000 units in the same quarter. On the bright side, Nintendo is once again profitable.

Nintendo dragged its feet in the move to HD and is paying the price. They underestimated the time and money expense, and now their first-party releases are behind. On top of that, there's barely been any marketing for the Wii U, which has a name that implies it's an accessory for the Wii rather than a new console. The console's tablet controller doesn't offer anything that people's existing smartphones and iPads can't do better. It was likely released in reaction to the iPad (Nintendo stated in 2010 that Apple is their biggest threat [eurogamer.net]). With the lack of hardware power and user base, there's nothing with which to court third-party developers, who are focused instead on the more powerful consoles coming out later this year.

Nintendo's stronghold remains handheld gaming. However, even that is under threat from smartphones. On top of what Android already supports, iOS 7 will ship with native physical controller APIs, and Apple is working with hardware manufacturers to release official attachments and wireless controllers. While the 3DS certainly won't disappear, it will be interesting to watch how well it fares among adult gamers when physical controllers become commonplace in the iPhone accessory aisle.

I'm only a data point, but my friends parallel my issues. We used to ALL be Nintendo zealots. We loved our Nintendo, SNES, N64, and Gamecubes. So clearly, when the chance to stand inline to midnight for the next great gaming machine with motion controllers came out, we volunteered happily! We bought a Nintendo Wii.... and then we plugged a game in. $60 game after $60 game, felt like pathetic toy. A tech demo at best, and pandering to an entirely different userbase at worst. They went from serving hardcore

But how do you connect your old cartridges to your OUYA so that you can get legal ROMs to put into emulators? A Retrode adapter works for most Genesis and Super NES games but costs about as much as the OUYA console itself and doesn't work with NES games. If the Discover menu had a section like Wii Shop's Virtual Console, with one-click access to a large variety of well-known 8-bit games, I could understand. But I haven't seen a lot of official rereleases of classic console games on OUYA, except for the Andr

When the Wii came out, it had fluid, well-executed 480p60 when Sony & Microsoft were lurching around with grossly-underpowered 720pWhatev3r, and true abominations like 1080i60. They finally caught up, and can now do effortless 720p60 and 1080p30 (maybe even 1080p60). Now *Nintendo* has the mediocre, underpowered HD, saddled with expensive controllers that are basically less-capable than a no-name $79 Rockchip-based Android tablet from Shenzhen. They would have been better off with a $149 7

You are correct about most things, but will disagree on your assessment of the Wii U tablet. If used properly, it could offer some very unique game play.

They've started to scratch the surface of that potential in a few "Nintendoland" minigames; the Luigi Ghost game and Metroid most notably. Being able to host competitive multiplayer on actual separate screens is a new development in console gaming.

Of course, these two little games aren't nearly enough to sell a system, or completely validate the concept... but it's a start. We need developers to actually utilize this technology to make new, interesting games. Imagine a dungeon crawler game, one person with the Tablet is the Dungeon Master, controlling hordes of orcs/zombies/etc like an RTS while up to 4 players on normal controllers try and make it through the dungeon, or save the princess, or whatever. The concept works for any cooperative multiplayer game... just let one person act as the opponent in place of the computer. Left 4 Dead does a similar thing, but it requires every player to have their own copy of the game, and be sitting on their own TV, with their own console/computer, etc. Wii U could bring that concept to a single living room couch.

Another big step will be the possibility of hosting multiple tablets on a single system. Especially for sports games, where your tablet can serve as your playbook. No more picking plays onscreen where the other player can clearly see what you're running. The TV can be dedicated to the actual on-field situation, with substitutions, sneak plays, formations, etc handled on the tablet. Hell, this could make for actual compelling "Video Games as a spectator sport." Two players have their tablets, control the plays, etc while a crowd watches a TV. To them, it looks like a regular game, with slightly awkward running motions at times.

I understand the gameplay potential given by the wii u controller. But forking 350 dollars to get the wii U with a crapppy tablet when an iPad would have done the trick (close to) just as well is counter productive. There are only a handful of games that will use the tablet in meaningful way. That make the cost of a Wii U not really justified.

I was really interested in the wii U. But it is very expensive for me and not really worth it at that point. A Ouya seems like a better choice than the Wii U. That's n

Interesting that you compare Wii U to iPad, and then complain about price. The deluxe Wii U package deal thing is still cheaper than a 2-generation old iPad.

Ouya + Nexus 7 might be an interesting concept (if the two can work together.) Haven't done too much tinkering with my Ouya yet (DAMN YOU STEAM SALE) but the few games I've downloaded are incredibly fun. Towerfall and Stalagflight are amazing as multiplayer games. Gives me hope that the Ouya experiment might bear fruit long term. Fingers crossed.

That idea has already been done a few times, but it's never caught on. The GBA could be connected to the Gamecube with a cable. The best game to use the link was probably Pac-Man vs. One player was Pac-Man, who used the GBA screen and could see the entire maze. The other players were the ghosts. They had their individual split screens on the TV. The ghosts had a very limited view so that pac-man wasn't completely screwed with 3 human controlled ghosts.

The GBA - Gamecube hookup was a half baked add-on halfway through the development cycle that required additional hardware (the GBAs of course, and the cables, which were hard to find) and had the wired-distance limitation. Wii U is starting with that concept out the gate, but hasn't done much with it beyond a few cute minigames. I'm sure they'll incorporate the tablet into other games a little bit (Dungeon Maps for Link, weapon selection for Samus, etc) but they need games that really explore the potentia

If I want to play a DM'd dungeon crawler there's tonnes of web apps for that on PC. Same with RTS, and it doesn't even cost much more (Starcraft I and any of the 20+ rts' on Gog with web support run fine an a low end laptop). Heck, for the RTS a Wii U costs more after buying 3 more of those tablet things.

Also, I found it annoying as heck to keep staring down at the tablet while playing Rayman Origins.

I agree with you on sports games, but that basically means EA, and I don't see EA getting behind Nint

Left 4 Dead does a similar thing, but it requires every player to have their own copy of the game, and be sitting on their own TV, with their own console/computer, etc. Wii U could bring that concept to a single living room couch.

Some people don't want to have to gather all participants physically, especially with friends who live hundreds of miles away. I've talked to some Slashdot users who can't even coordinate schedules for an online friend match and instead prefer to play in pickup groups with strangers. Nintendo's child-friendly "friend code" policy has hurt its value proposition for stranger play.

Personally, I'm grateful Nintendo is a games first type company. How often do we complain about any industry bending to the shareholders desires for short term profits? Yet you complain about Nintendo not cheapening their IP in order to make tons of money. Nintendo's doing the right thing. It will work for them. If you'll excuse me I've got some Pikmin 3 to anticipate playing this weekend.

In America if a publicly traded company has a huge hit like the Wii and doesn't follow it up they get eaten alive by their investors. We even have a name for it: Bained, after Bain Capital, the company most famous for it.

I think you demonstrate my point exactly. We remember games like Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy 2. We don't remember "EA Sports Game 2003" or "Random Activision Shooter 5: This time more swearing". Nintendo makes masterpieces where every game stands on their own, even games that are a part of a series. You don't hear people say, "My favorite Boring Doom Clone is _____" Instead they say, "My favorite Zelda game is _____" and you get a variety of answers. The games themselves don't degrade with t

My local Gamestop had a Wii U kiosk for a while. But some of the games on it didn't even work right, and the ones that did just looked like warmed-over versions of the same Mario platformers they've been doing for over 20 years. There was absolutely nothing in the display that made it even remotely enticing.

The problem is twofold, 1.- The system is INSANELY weak, more of an upgrade to the Wii than a new system and frankly tech has progressed a hell of a lot farther since the Wii. If you look up the specs the GPU is equal to an HD4650, that is a GPU that wasn't even high middle when released and has been in legacy for over 2 years. This will make it hard for Nintendo to get third parties, the other 2 use AMD APUs and can be easily ported between each other, Wii U uses an older PPC chip so it just won't run the

I guess the bit they missed was realizing that the ipad was just a games machine - did other stuff as well.
I'm never one to praise Sony, but with the VIta they at least pitched it right - we make games consoles. We've made the best portable games console we could. If you want a portable games console, please buy it.
I frankly fail to see if Nintendo think that the future is a touch screen, why they didn't just go software only. Square seem to have leapt into the tablet market with both feet, and just ignor

What the Wii U GamePad has that the vast majority of phones and tablets lack is physical buttons. I tried playing the demo of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on a Nexus 7 tablet and it was far more difficult to control than Super Mario Bros. 3 on my NES. I played a game that's pretty much the same thing on my cousin's OUYA console (Giana Sisters) and it was far more enjoyable.

On top of what Android already supports

It's not necessarily what Android supports as what people already own. I can think of only three name-brand Android devices that shi

But at least the screens are the same distance away and in the same angular area. You can easily watch both screens. With the U, you'll be back and forth between the two, refocusing and changing your field of view.

Textures are more dependent on the memory available than the output resolution

More output resolution needs larger textures, and this in turn needs not only more memory (RAM) but also more memory (ROM) and faster access to the memory. In addition, more output resolution needs more geometry, and some of the shortcuts in modeling for SD/ED don't apply as well to HD in the same way that the low-definition models of Doubutsu no Mori for N64 stuck out like a sore thumb when the game was ported to the GameCube as Animal Crossing. (They fit in better in Wild World for DS, which is also low-d

I'll start caring about computing power on consoles again when we have ray-shaded games, I haven't cared about the shininess of games in years now.

There's more that can be done with computing power than just make things shiny.

Although, if you're selling the same game over and over with only incremental gameplay improvements, the Nintendo equivalent of Windows 3.11 over 3.1, then there's nothing much you can do with your extra computing power EXCEPT add a few extra shaders.

There's more that can be done with computing power than just make things shiny.

Only thing I can come up with is AI. And let's be honest, most of the improvements in AI in the last decade have been style and breadth increasing rather than increasing depth of behavior. Neither of those are performance hogs.

But NONE of these titles exist!! As a long time Nintendo fan, I'd buy all of these, but they didn't even bother to make and have them ready by the Wii U launch!!

Also, the migration from the Wii to the Wii U was so customer hostile that we don't play Wii games on the Wii U, we fire up the Wii and use that. One time, one direction game data transfer!! Fuck that shit!! One of the worst customer decisions ever by Nintendo. On the Wii you could plug in the cartridge from your gamecube to access the saved game data, why the hell won't the Wii U and Wii allow you to move Wii save game data back and forth on a SIM card. Oh, what's that Nintendo? Piracy, you say? Well Fuck you there too! I'm a customer who's fairly committed to your stuff who is getting rapidly disillusioned.

Link to the past was by far my favorite of the series. The Wind Waker is my second favorite and in terms of fun I would say the two are a tie. Link's Awakening was another good addition as well on GBC. For some reason I couldn't get into the N64 releases like Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask but my brother did. Haven't played any of the Zelda's after Wind Waker as that was past my point of caring about console games.

We're nine months from launch and still waiting for any of these games!!

Super Mario Brothers U is a great game, but its out there all alone as a Wii U title from Nintendo. Nine months after release!!

As far as a new Zelda goes, the reason I mentioned it as a FPS is because that could take advantage of finally having HD and make a great looking game. I agree that the story and gameplay would need to be good. Perhaps it could be better as a RPG, but whatever, I want a Zelda game in HD.

The first step to solving a problem, is identifying it. I find the fact that Nintendo was willing to blame it self for its failure in the market place encouraging.

Rather than a bunch of executives playing CYA and concocting some narrative full of nonsense about macro economic headwinds or something, they actually named something they will be expected to do something about.

The first step to solving a problem, is identifying it. I find the fact that Nintendo was willing to blame it self for its failure in the market place encouraging.

Rather than a bunch of executives playing CYA and concocting some narrative full of nonsense about macro economic headwinds or something, they actually named something they will be expected to do something about.

Agreed. And they should have made the Wii U capable of rendering existing games in HD resolutions, then the lack of new HD content wouldn't matter as much. The dolphin emulator can do it, Nintendo could have done it too.

They are so paranoid about compatibility because of their history of designing things around fixed hardware to get the most out of it (including saving time NOT testing software for such changes.)

Nintendo could simply create an OPTION to run Wii games in full emulation mode or enhanced mode - and let the user set the option; default to the safe option. Later, with enough feedback online (a simple forum or poll online) could allow them to update their software with a list of safe games to run in enhanced mode.

OR they could continue to think like the music and movie industry and expect people to buy replacements... then NOT release HD versions of their old games-- Nintendo rarely ever remakes anything, just a few zelda games and the rest is all emulated.

I know it's a joke, but 3D games CAN benefit from higher resolution than that for which they were designed. The textures get blurred a little, but the edges of geometry remain sharp. Think of it in terms of raster vs. vector images: you can upscale a vector image without losing sharpness. The same goes for 3D geometry.

The analogy to PNG vs. SVG isn't perfect, as SVG uses Bezier paths that are defined as the limit of a tesselation process. Old-school 3D games, on the other hand, use triangles or quadrilaterals as the primitive and most weren't coded with real-time tesselation in mind. Would you want to play GoldenEye 007 with blocky N64 models at 1080p? Sometimes you really do need more geometry to make a scene look good in high definition. Besides, roundoff error often leads to gaps between polygons when things are upsca

It's actually not that hard, but some games would be glitchy. And the glitchy games would get a ton of press and be shown off to the world as the "representative" samples of the Wii U quality in people's minds. (Sort of like the Apple Maps app.) So I can understand why they didn't do it, but it would have been cool.

Yes, that is amusing to hear considering how much myself and my PC gaming friends used to bitch (we have given up) about how much consoles were dumbing-down/ruining games. Not looking to dig that corpse up again....just saying it is funny to hear a console gamer complain about it.

Ha! I remember 1993 when the bearded engineers playing hex wargames/RPG's/flightsims were complaining about the frat-boys playing DOOM and how action games like DOOM were dumbing down PC gaming. So don't go blaming the console gamers, blame ID and John Romero... the "dumbing down" of PC gaming started with Wolfenstein and all the frat-boy gamers brought to PC gaming because of it.

Really, ID and PC's becoming cheaper changed the demographics of PC gaming greatly. Where once it was your typical upper middl

I got my PS3 in 2008, when you could get a deluxe model with an 80GB hard drive, the 4 USB ports, built in card reader and PS2 compatibility bundled with what was then the new Dual Shock 3's, oh...and MGS4, but I didn't care much about that. And Pain... All for 499 or was it 459... anyway, good deal for that model in 2008 when there was more of a game selection.

That's one of the nice things about PSN, buy a PSone classic once, play it on your PS3 AND PSP or Vita. Used to be up to 5 authorized devices...I think it's 3 now because of people abusing the system by sharing PSN account info.

If I want to play CT for the eight bajillionth time (never have got everyone up to Lvl 99), I can pull out the SNES and Chrono Trigger cartridge. Or I can pull out the disk of the Final Fantasy Chronicles version and put it in the PS3 (or pull out the stored PS2). Or I can just play the PSN version of the disk version on my PS3, or PSP.

And yes, it's one of my favorite games (up there with Super Metroid, FFVII, Castlevania SOTN, Fallout 3, PSone Diablo).....I should play it again...though I have seen all t

I dragged my feet for some time on this purchase, the console has potential, but for now the only game I've purchased for it is Lego City Undercover. The Wii U is really just a big non portable Nintendo DS. The Lego game makes great use of the gamepad, interactive map, vehicle/character catalogs, video chat, surveillance device, etc. Very likely the best Lego game so far (pretty sure we've played them all now). The problem with most of the other titles is they really don't know what to do with it, even

I did like the option on Lego Batman II: DC Heroes where I could use the tablet when I walked away from my daughter who was using the screen. That was much better than a split screen. But since the game locks up repeatedly and the "city" makes it nearly impossible to find missions, we just quit playing it. Really bad quality control on that one.

Nintendo has always had a cost niche that set them apart from xbox and ps3. Why would they want to go head to head? My kids are older now and I am not going to shell out that much money because they want to play a few titles that they liked when they were younger.

I had one for a month or so. Very few games to pick from, those I tried were "meh", nothing on the level of Wii Sports for the original Wii. The screen added nothing of value, the UI is extremely slow, it really isn't much fun. And the emulator is still unable to render my old stuff in full HD - so what is the point?
I really don't understand what I would want to do with a Wii U. Luckily I was able to sell mine again for almost no loss.

Could have fooled me (well they did), what with having to boot up in a special compatibility mode and not supporting 1080p.
I bought the original Wii not knowing much about Nintendo, but I have since realised again and again that they don't give a shit about their customers. Well fuck em, may they go bankrupt soon.

I really like the Wii. The motion controls system is by far gen 1, and I always figured that the successor to the Wii would have a better motion control system (perhaps something akin to the Kinect, but a little shy). Then the Wii U is announced and it turns out that the motion control system is identical. The Wii U is a Wii + a fat controller with a screen stuck between the controls.
So Nintendo back peddled on the motion control thing they had going for them, and as a result the older hardware is still outselling the new hardware because it's cheaper and does as good as the newer hardware in what people buy a Wii for. If the Wii U had a motion control system consumers considered to be an improvement over the Wii, I suspect that Wii U would be at least outselling the Wii.

The Wii already had that, and it was called the MotionPlus. It didn't work out too well because by that time most third-party developers had jumped ship. Given that, I don't think a Wii 2 would have worked out much better.

MotionPlus was a failure in solving the problem of better motion control. It still would "lose" you, and you had to regularly (sometimes every ten or so minutes) have to recalibrate the thing. MotionPlus was a stop gap, and it's sad that in the current state of things, looks like the solution. Motion Plus was something that could be added to the existing system; what the successor to the Wii needed was an improved motion sensor, not an identical one.

Nintendo did this to themselves when they abandoned hardcore gamers to cater to casual games with the Wii. That move will always come back to bite you because the casual users are fickle while hardcore gamers will get you through the rough times. And sure enough, casual gamers have moved on to Facebook, tablets, and smartphones, and Nintendo doesn't have anyone left to sell consoles. I used to buy Nintendo consoles because I could play most of the great games available on other systems as well as Nintendo's excellent titles. But ever since the Wii, Nintendo lost most of the decent third-party developers which meant that hardcore gamers would have to buy the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 to be able to play those games. When that happened, many of the developers and the gamers haven't looked back. Luckily for Nintendo, they're still selling decent numbers of portable units, but the Wii U is in serious trouble. There's no doubt that it will pick up a bit when more first-party titles come out and after an inevitable price drop, but right now most of the hype is around the Xbone and PS4. At this point, I just don't see them making a miraculous comeback and I can't help but wonder if this is their last console. If they did another console, it would have to be absolutely revolutionary - my vote is for a fully immersive virtual reality experience, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that.

But all they have to do is make great Nintendo titles for the Wii U. The same titles that people like me have been playing and replaying since the NES when we were kids. But they haven't done that for some reason.

That is all they would have to do to get you back (as well as some of the other die-hard Nintendo fans). But there are a lot of other people who won't buy the console at all due to the lack of third-party support. Those people are too busy playing the tons of games available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as anticipating their successors. As great as Nintendo games are, it's a lot to ask of someone to buy a console where the only worthwhile titles are first-party. And it's a lot to ask of Nintendo to

When BluRay and HD-DVD came out, it offered better quality video to people who didn't really need it. Sure high definition was nice, but it wasn't really a good enough reason to toss out the old DVD stuff to make room for it. Besides, with video downloads and online rentals coming about, there was just not a good enough reason for it. Add to that the fact the Blu-Ray DRM was so damn restrictive that people were constantly having to update their BluRay player to handle new films....DVD on the other hand intr

What destroyed the Wii U for me, was the GIANT fischer Price controller.I bought one as soon as it came out, for the HD definition part. The controller with a resistive (one touch only) screen (no multitouch) was a dodo bird. Doomed from the start.

I got the wiimote later on, and was relieved, even though I did not have a WII (the old wii...not the new Wii U). And the games (that was compatible with the Wiimote) was a lot more fun as I had to move my entire body to slash and dice with the sword. The Wii U's

As a long time game dev & gamer I think I agree with your conclusion and hope your post gets modded up.

The Wii was literally a 2x GameCube. They "won" that round of consoles focusing on gameplay over "flash". It is sad to see them trying to do the same thing with the Wii U and failing. The marketing dept. alone should be fired for dumb naming.

Your comment about Nintendo focusing on Software like Sega is very interesting! Nintendo has a long history of "gimmick" or "fad" hardware and I think it has f